Poll Technica: Would you use a dual-persona smartphone?

Want a smartphone that totally isolates work apps and data from personal ones?

Dual-persona smartphones provide a workspace that is totally isolated from your personal applications and data. This image shows "Divide," a dual-persona tool, running on an iPhone.

Smartphones are becoming more popular by the minute, and many phone-wielding people are using the devices for both work and play. If you've bought one yourself, you'll likely be connecting to an employer's mail and calendar system. If it's an employer-purchased phone, then it's for work—except when you're calling or e-mailing friends and posting on Facebook.

In short, the control businesses traditionally enjoyed over devices employees use is being lost with smartphones. Some IT vendors are trying to put control back in the hands of the employers. Is that a good thing?

One way to achieve this is with a dual-persona smartphone, a device that completely separates the work and personal portions of a phone for security reasons. When you click an icon to enter the "work" side of your phone, it's like going into a separate phone: you enter a PIN to unlock it, and you then have access to e-mail and your other work applications. There are benefits for both businesses and users here. The business can impose restrictions, such as preventing copying and pasting text from a work app to a personal app or only allowing certain documents to be opened in work applications. For users, these restrictions can be imposed just on the work side of things—your employer won't be peering into the contents of your personal phone, and if your employer needs to remotely wipe your device it can be done without affecting any of your personal applications, photos, e-mail, etc.

VMware has been promising dual-personal Android phones using virtualization for a couple of years and has a similar project in the works for the iPhone. VMware's project has been beset by delays, but the company says it will provide purchasing information to business customers "in the coming weeks." Verizon entered this market in the meantime, partnering with the maker of a dual-persona system called Divide for smartphones and tablets. Dual-persona systems will typically be sold directly to businesses looking to wield more fine-grained control over employee-owned devices. But even if your employer doesn't have an official dual-personal smartphone program, you can use Divide on an Android or iOS device for free.

While there are clearly benefits (especially for businesses), a system that essentially creates two phones on the same device could make smartphones less convenient to use. That's one reason we want to know whether you, as a user, are interested in dual-persona smartphones (trying out Divide is a good way to see for yourself). Feel free to vote in our poll and expand on your thoughts in the comments. Additionally, if you work in IT feel free to sound off on whether dual-persona smartphones are a good idea from a business and technology perspective. We will come back later this week with results of the poll and a summary of your comments.

88 Reader Comments

My company does not require that I carry a smartphone or be available to use it after hours, although it has come in handy in the past. I do try to leave work at work at the end of the day.

I can see the utility in something like this for people who don't or can't have that kind of separation, though. I know a few people who would find use for this kind of setup. My question would be whether employers who are more particular about employee smartphones (type and setup) would accept something like this.

If it worked well, I'd just it just for my personal stuff. I'd love to be able to hand my phone to my niece and nephew and let them play games without worrying about them poking around in my e-mail or calendar.

My company does not require that I carry a smartphone or be available to use it after hours, although it has come in handy in the past. I do try to leave work at work at the end of the day.

I can see the utility in something like this for people who don't or can't have that kind of separation, though. I know a few people who would find use for this kind of setup. My question would be whether employers who are more particular about employee smartphones (type and setup) would accept something like this.

If it worked well, I'd just it just for my personal stuff. I'd love to be able to hand my phone to my niece and nephew and let them play games without worrying about them poking around in my e-mail or calendar.

I agree- I would love to be able to keep my work phone on lockdown once I leave work- that way I am not always connected to work and can more easily ignore it in the evening.

Long a proponent of strict separation between work and personal, especially if the employer is likely to demand I turn anything in. I don't need some employer hoarding any personal data with no accountability except to the organization.

But for that, I want separate devices. They can demand their own phone all they want. Mine stays mine. Some middle manager is likely to demand my dual-identity device in its entirety anyway. So keep anything personal on a device no employer can compel you to relinquish.

That said, I am fortunate now not to work for such an organization. So to hell with carrying two phones. Voted no separation!

Maybe I'm weird, but if I needed to use a smartphone for my job, I'd much rather have my own personal phone for my stuff and a physically distinct device for job stuff. But I'm paranoid about privacy, and also wouldn't want to surrender control of my personal devices to my employer (nothing against them, it's just a matter of principle).

Yes, sign me up. I want a wall between my private life and my online persona.

Currently, I do use different logins for different activities because my private life encompasses details (banking, family, etc.) that I don't want intermixed with my online life. For example, I do not want Facebook's photos polluting my contacts. (Yes, I understand that one can work around that. It's just an example and it's still not something I want.)

If it worked well, I'd just it just for my personal stuff. I'd love to be able to hand my phone to my niece and nephew and let them play games without worrying about them poking around in my e-mail or calendar.

That scenario is best handled by alternate user accounts entirely, or "guest mode" access. Personal/work seperation within your device is another issue entirely.

Yes, sign me up. I want a wall between my private life and my online persona.

Currently, I do use different logins for different activities because my private life encompasses details (banking, family, etc.) that I don't want intermixed with my online life. For example, I do not want Facebook's photos polluting my contacts. (Yes, I understand that one can work around that. It's just an example and it's still not something I want.)

Assuming the technology worked reliably (I could see this being a detriment to performance), I would be hesitant unless there was some type of encryption and legal protection to ensure that the employer cannot legally access my side of the device... especially if the employer paid for the device and may exert their rights to all the information on the device.

Even with all that aside, I like the fact I can leave work in a drawer when I want to.

As one who has to carry a smart phone for work I like the idea... Rarely does the execution meet with what my idea of it should be though. My first issue would be if that my work phone was subpoenaed for a legal issue would the non work portion be discoverable?

No way I want the same device for work and personal. As it stands I still have my 5yo Nokia candybar for work, and whatever smartphone I feel like for personal use. I already spend enough hours working, I don't want to let it any further into my life!

I don't understand this desire for such control. IT has changed drastically since the 80's and 90's; we no longer have the same amount of control (I would make the case that we never did, it was self-aggrandization, but that is for another post).

Laptops are regularly given out to employees, those same employees frequently permitted (if not outright then through omission of enforcement) to use the device for small personal things. Online banking, checking your children's grades at school, etc etc etc. Sure, they come equipped with disk encryption and VPN access. This is all for naught when an employee can readily email documents containing sensitive information.

So the most common argument I have seen for this type of split - restricting access to sensitive company data so it cannot be easily shared through social media or other personal access methods - doesn't hold water. This ship already has a glaring hole under the waterline, so to speak.

Instead of spending time worrying about something that cannot be controlled (i.e. employee conduct), we should spend our efforts on mitigating those misuses and recovering. This is what IT is slowly learning from the BYOD fare. Initially we heard chicken-little claims of how the networks will be compromised, yada yada yada. Now we are seeing that business is more enabled by working how they need - giving faster, better, and cheaper results.

Yes, sign me up. I want a wall between my private life and my online persona.

Currently, I do use different logins for different activities because my private life encompasses details (banking, family, etc.) that I don't want intermixed with my online life. For example, I do not want Facebook's photos polluting my contacts. (Yes, I understand that one can work around that. It's just an example and it's still not something I want.)

I would love for that to be an option.

This poll was really about the work/personal divide. But that is an interesting point, which perhaps we can address somehow in a future article. Thanks for the suggestion.

I wouldn't want the same phone for work and personal use, unless the company guaranteed the user (in writing) complete control over/rights to privacy of all personal information on the device, and guaranteed that it would never be used (by them) to harm me.

I can certainly see the convenience aspect, and, perhaps, I feel this way because I've never had to use to devices (employer never mandated the use of a smart phone for work).

When you look at your calendar, dont you want it to show all your appointments across mutliple accounts? No? Ok use GOOD.

You think dual-persona is a good thing, wait till your IT Overlord forces it on you in a draconian manner, you'll be begging to remove the second persona, and re-integrate. Dual persona is just slightly better than carrying 2 phones. I know!

I carry a personal Galaxy Note 2, and a enterprise iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 has GOOD on it. Guess where I leave the iPhone5 every day... Turned-off in my desk at work, since the Webmaill is much better than GOOD, since GOOD wont even show cached info if there is no network connectivity.

I'm looking at this article from an IT point of view and a bit of insight to enterprise management (since I work closely with them).

I think this feature will become more and more popular over time. I have a company issued BB and I've been happy with it. It's selling point to me is I don't have to pay a dime for my phone or service/data. That said I would like to be able to divide the system and have a personal 'sandbox' away from work.

The real trick comes from a business standpoint. While only a very small percentage of people where I work have company phones, almost everyone has a smart phone. We have been opening up company emails onto these regular phones because some people asked if they could do that for various reasons. When it all came down to it, it was in the companies best interest (from a management standpoint) to allow this. Why? So people could handle work correspondence when away from the office or while at home in the evening. It's essentially free work. You can not only keep people who wish work services on their phone productive (granted limited) outside the office all the while not having to pay for the device or data plan, it's a win all around for them.

My particular view is likely well represented in the sample here at Ars where I only need to take an occasional call for my work and so let them have my personal phone currently. I still don't use it for work email etc. to try to keep some separation and not grant them the right to remotely wipe my phone ..

My strong preference would be a phone with multiple identities. Lockbox mode for banking and important stuff, all manner of foolish web and social stuff and work. I'd be happy to pay for the phone as long as work related expenses are covered by the employer and you can be 'away' from work during personal time.

My digital life has been separated in three ways. Work, school and personal. Of course all of these already have their own accounts for email, access, etc...So I don't really have a need an account system on my phone. This is similar to personal accounts on the PC and that usually results in multiple copies of the same thing bogging down the system memory - which is usually very limited space on a smart phone. If you don't share your phone - which you probably don't - there's no need for this. Just group your contacts and make sure your using the correct email account. This is nothing new.

At my company our first attempt at this very thing was GOOD for Enterprise and I loved it. It had it's own password, and all of my work information was sandboxed from my personal device. In a cost savings measure, however, GOOD was replaced with Traveller for Lotus Notes which provided direct integration to the iOS e-mail and calendar apps. This would have been fine except for the fact that Traveller came with it's own policies, including forcing device passwords (I don't have my home iPad password protected--passwords are a pain when all I'm doing is casual surfing and gaming).

If my company's IT department was comfortable dictating how I used my device that I paid for, then I have no doubt they'd also be comfortable pushing every moral boundary, such as perusing my browsing history (something they do on work issued computers) or personal e-mails. Traveller was deleted and I no longer check e-mail from home.

I have a personal phone that work (and network monitoring kit) knows the number of, but there's no work data on the phone. When I leave work, it can either wait until I'm back in the office or it's of sufficient importance that someone calls me or I get an SMS alert.

The legal discovery aspects of this would be a trainwreck for the first few years, since the police & courts don't have a great track record at understanding technology.

Voted "if someone really wants to have work data on their personal phone in a secure, legislatively-compliant way, let's trial it", but have doubts about usability (flipping between two calendars when setting up appointments would be annoying, for example) and legal implications.

I like to have separation. After all, company wants me to keep company documents and discussions confidential, and I want my personal life not to be something the company has any interest in.

As to whether I would need a complete virtual machine separation, probably not. I've managed so far with keeping separate IDs and separate email for different personas. Three works well - work, friends, family. I see online IDs as rather like credit cards, not like real life IDs. You keep several and use them for different purposes.

But having all of them accessible from one phone is fine, as long as they don't get merged. I don't want to add a person to my work email and be confronted with a list of my friends outside work, or vice versa. I want to pick an account, and it be confined to the purposes I give it.

Ability to designate apps as "work" or "home" and to have that set by administrators remotely via profiles without requiring 3rd party servers (as iOS can do via Exchange).

Segregated local storage, some for work, some for personal. Apps market for work are the only ones that can access the work local storage. Sizes of these psaces shoudl be dynamic not hard set. Work email and other data naturally is stored in the work area as a seperat db file (even if the inboxes are merged logically).

On a per-app basis, apps gain network selectiveness. Apps designated for work can connect thru work wifi, but other apps will still use cellular independently as if not connected to that network. This would allow WiFi at work while preventing firewalls from stopping user-space apps from maintaining connectivity. In addition to work apps, some apps could be designated able to access the work network with permission from admins.

Support or block use of removable storage on a per-app and per mode basis.

option to disable "personal" notifications on the phone during work hours, however the reverse can be done outside of work hours for employees not compensated for on-call time or overtime preventing simple notifications from apps, email, or even calls when not on the clock (which a user MAY override if admins allow by manually launch ing the app or turning sync back on). This should function by either geofencing, time/date (and accounting for noting "vacation" settings in a work callendar to prevent notifications when on vacation), or by manual toggle.

Unified inbox for all accounts, or individually by mode. New mail for work accounts would only appear in the inbox if enabled or "working" and private mail would only arrive when not working, even in the same inbox, unless a user manually checks main on a specific accouont outside of configured opperation. This also nececitates signatures by account and also OOO notification settings to be different per account.

Dual phone numbers, one for work, one for other. The ability to block or limit calls from one or the other during certain times of the day either by admin or the user, and still allow some contacts to overwide that setting (or say an emergency where they call more than twice in 5 minutes the third call would go through, or the voicemail that picks up allows them to "press 1 if this is an emergency" to put the call thru anyway or transfer it to the work number). Allow the work number to be "owned" by the company but the other number to be changed at will by the user. Dual Sim as well, allowing for the company to support one carrier and the user to support another, segregating call, SMS, and data minutes from each other's respective plan on the same device (which hopefully carriers would recognize and bill accordingly for, so the sum of the two is not more than 150% of the cost under a single plan with total combined benefits).

Calls to either number would reference contacts in both databases and respond accordingly. If you have the same contact at both work and personal, and they have 2 phones, work and home, when they call from one they get your work voicemail, and the other your personal number. On screen you see a slightly different UI allowing you to note if they're calling for "business or pleasure" If you have but a single number for them, but list them in both contact databases, when they call they'll get the appropriate response depending on your "on or off hours" setting, a default you prefer them to get, etc, but either way it WILL ring no matter what time it is either mode you are in. (handy for putting your boss or other key people in your phone so THEY can reach you any time, this shoudl also be an easy setting to put in either contact database allowing certain work contacts to have "call you at home"permission and vice versa if your admins allow it).

Such a system not only provides a dual-mode seperated experience, and blends that experience where preferable in some cases, but it also allows the phone itself to help you comply with other existing workplace rules like "no personal calls at the office" without having to force you to have 2 phones while equally helping keep the company honest and allow you to block work-related activity in your view from home if you're not being paid for accessing that data off hours. It also means your apps work at work without having to pass through the companies firewall or causing network oriented security issues but while concurrently allowing you on the LAW. Having independent storage, phone numbers, and even carriers make it particularly easy to seperate yourself from that phone, or your employer, later. I assume such OS features would come at a premium, as would a dusl-sim dual carrier configuration, and I would not expect much of a contract discount from the carrier, though it shoudl be less than the total cost of 2 independent phones and plans. By keeping it all truly seperate, it also gives you good options for filing those taxes and expense reports since you could get per-mode aggregate data on usage to divide that bill up accordingly per uncle Sams' rules.

I like the idea of a "work app" that is actually a different environment/sandbox, but going a step further, beyond the "mobile app player" I'd like to see smartphones that allow easy and endless costomization. MayeI want to "boot" the cell with Google Chrome, and JUST the browser without being forced to integrate other services. Perhaps at lunch time I want to switch out and use my Nintendo DS emulator. For that party tonight I can use my Adobe PhotoWorks environment.

Yes, all of this stuff could be "on the phone" in app form, but I hate this damn march to madness where every company wants to be your "soul" master controlling, sorry, integrating every other thing you do with their own product. Let ME decide how I want images stored, and what apps have access. Let ME mix and match this wallpaper with that clock and this phone dailer that DOESN'T act like yet another contact manager. Oh, and how about letting me do all these things from my laptop, on a big screen where I can see the dozen or so VE's (Virtual Environments) I've created or downloaded.

Todays smartphone is barely a phone, and by tomorrow, the phone part will be self-contained on that optional bluetooth headset.

It doesn't matter to me whether work gives me a dual-persona phone or not. I'm still not going to use it for personal use.

I would never give my employer my login information for Facebook. If you hook up your FB account to your work phone, you are basically doing just that. I would continue to use my personal phone for that stuff.

Ken Fisher wrote:

My problem is that many of the apps and things I do, I do for both work and pleasure. So it has no real utility for me.

I do love Kid-mode personalities, though. A la Windows Phone.

Multiple user accounts on a phone/tablet is a good idea for consumer use; especially Kids-modes. Windows Phone has the alternate UI for kids and iOS has Guided Access, but neither do what things the way I really want.

I want to have my account with my apps and data stored. Then if one of my kids accesses their account on the phone, they will have completely different settings and apps available to them and any changes they make on that account are not reflected on my account. Basically what users have come to expect from the standard Windows desktop OS.

There would have to be some smart programming on the back-end of the OS to be able to handle individual settings and to manage installed apps for optimal memory and storage usage.

There should be parental settings that can be configured from a Parent account on the phone/tablet.

So while dual-persona isn't necessarily something I am interested for business or personal; the concept of multiple user's and separated settings is something I am very interested in.

Dual-persona, multiple user accounts, etc are all good, but without dual-SIM and separate phone numbers/plans for each, it's really kind of useless. There's no way I'm paying for company phone calls. And there's no way I'm putting my personal info onto a company-owned phone.

If it worked well, I'd just it just for my personal stuff. I'd love to be able to hand my phone to my niece and nephew and let them play games without worrying about them poking around in my e-mail or calendar.

I wouldn't have a problem with my employer putting something like SAP Afaria or even managing my device via Active Directory/System Center so long as their ability to manage/snoop/wipe was limited to items on the device and associated with my work ID. Things in the cloud that I've accessed on the device and those credentials should be off limits. Of course I could manage that bit myself by requiring a log in every time they were accessed from the device. Privacy or convenience? Decisions, decisions.

Does it bother anyone, or strike anyone as very odd, that someone like Zuckerberg could advocate "single profile" mentality? I mean, we've all been online since the late 80's and seen all these forums and arenas rise and fall and rise..... how could anyone involved in the online world default to a myopic, naive station like Zuckerberg? I am more of a Moot guy, myself - anonymity isn't always pretty, but it's fairly important. As for dual personas, no one would know me as Michael. Anytime I try to go by my real name, no one has any idea who I am. Professionally, I am a bore and thought leader in my profession, personally I am curious and scientific and into futurism, the singularity, etc. Those two worlds would completely be useless if they crossed over, as each audience would find the other thoughts irrelevant. It isn't about duplicitousness, it's simply about knowing your audience... and no end of complex user interface controls will create simplicity or uniformity. Anyways... it strikes me as gloriously ignorant that people would ignore this. Just give me perceptual filters or "lens" on my social profiles.. . like let me slide between my twitter accounts. I will be set. Set up a wall on my phone, which is basically there, and I am set.

I just can't imagine not having multiple outlets for my multiple interests, without reducing the equity in the attention of my fans by posting irrelevant stuff, etc. okay I ramble...

I really appreciate having my work email/calendar/contacts in the "sandboxed" inside the Touchdown app on my Android phone, so I don't get notifications and such when I don't want, but I can still access that data when needed.

But now that I'm strongly considering defecting to an iPhone, I'm looking for a similar way to separate my Exchange ActiveSync data in the same way on iOS...

Ive been trying to find a decent Dual SIM Smartphone for a lifetime now. While they exist; they're bulky and often from obscure Chinese makers with more focus on the aspect of Dual SIM that overall usability.

If I had to have a work phone, or IT wanted draconian things like remote wipe or blocking iCloud, then I would rather dump them in a sandboxed app than give them access to the whole phone. Of course, it would be lovely if Apple created a first-party solution for walling in company data (and IT policies) on iOS.

A company *insisted* on giving me a second iPhone, I'd put it in a red case and leave it on "Do Not Disturb".

Of course, all of the above for an Android phone, too. Maybe one of the OEMs could do something useful for a change and implement a secure virtual machine to differentiate their flavor of Android.

It doesn't matter to me whether work gives me a dual-persona phone or not. I'm still not going to use it for personal use.

I would never give my employer my login information for Facebook. If you hook up your FB account to your work phone, you are basically doing just that. I would continue to use my personal phone for that stuff.

Ken Fisher wrote:

My problem is that many of the apps and things I do, I do for both work and pleasure. So it has no real utility for me.

I do love Kid-mode personalities, though. A la Windows Phone.

Multiple user accounts on a phone/tablet is a good idea for consumer use; especially Kids-modes. Windows Phone has the alternate UI for kids and iOS has Guided Access, but neither do what things the way I really want.

I want to have my account with my apps and data stored. Then if one of my kids accesses their account on the phone, they will have completely different settings and apps available to them and any changes they make on that account are not reflected on my account. Basically what users have come to expect from the standard Windows desktop OS.

There would have to be some smart programming on the back-end of the OS to be able to handle individual settings and to manage installed apps for optimal memory and storage usage.

There should be parental settings that can be configured from a Parent account on the phone/tablet.

So while dual-persona isn't necessarily something I am interested for business or personal; the concept of multiple user's and separated settings is something I am very interested in.

The Nexus tablets have multiple user accounts in the latest OTA updates. Still nothing for the phone, though.

The only area where I could really see some conflict with is for a single device with dual personas, some of the data or apps should be able to be marked as 'joined' - a good example would be in the area of the calendar application. When looking at a schedule and trying to figure out your life, being able to merge both personal and business events would almost be necessary - and trying to flip between them would be a real PITA.

Much like a couple should have accounts such as 'yours, mine, ours', being able to have an app that straddles -both- of those segregated areas would make it more useful. Of course, overuse of the merging feature would eliminate much of the point of the segregation, but it should be something to consider.

Overall though, I would certainly like being able to 'turn off' my work life once in a while when I'm on my own time instead of being tied to my phone for everyone else in both my personal and business life.

I'd use this. I have two Exchange accounts on the iPhone. The phone UI gives me an illusion of having two separate accounts with two separate stores and separate folder structures.... right up until I tap on 'all inboxes' and see messages from both accounts jumbled together.